ALBUM REVIEW: Pet Needs – ‘Elbows Out! This Is Capitalism’

If everyone agrees that writing songs about social media is the lamest thing you can do, how do Pet Needs get away with it? Well, considering that album title could’ve come from Reuben themselves, they’re evidently going into this with an angle in mind.

You’ll notice with Elbows Out! This Is Capitalism that there’s an ethos that runs deeper than just “phones bad, and the rest”. Pleasantly, that’s not a surprise. When you take a look at Pet Needs’ constituent parts—part 2000s Britrock faves, part emotive alt-punk lifers—they’re plenty prepared for it. They’ve also never been truly inside the Big Rock Machine, offering the twofold benefit of the flexibility to criticise it, and the experience to have that cut. Thus, we get Elbows Out! This Is Capitalism, a skewering of industry practices and disparities that, through Pet Needs’ extensive detail and wit, lands with some exceptional frequency.

It’s no secret where the blows are aimed; it’s spoiled in the title. Near enough all of frontman Johnny Marriott’s frustrations can be traced to capitalism’s hold on music, where ‘art for art’s sake’ isn’t sustainable when so many roadblocks have been put in the way. And yes, there is a couple of jabs at online culture in there with Ducklings and Pixels, but they’re also framed as part of the bigger rot. Pet Needs are canny enough to trace any and all lines back to the central failing, from constant fatigue as part of the deal on Tour Worn, to disingenuous nepo babies on Party With A Hard T, to the barrage of stimuli afflicting the likes of The Wardrobe Song and Keep Eyes On that slam down all at once.

It’s the throughline of disenfranchisement that makes Elbows Out!… feel like something more, though. Plainspoken as it is on Paintballs, the album’s framing device of an auction as a means to be rid of this punk career lands more brutally. It’s just the most convenient outcome, an idea that’s left to percolate at all times. And there’s no positive spin beneath the surface, illustrated in the album’s interludes. CJ Ramone comes across as an embittered veteran whose only answer is to grin and bear it. Meanwhile, The Whops are naively enthusiastic about the prospect of ‘making it’, unaware of everything they’ve still got to look forward to.

Through an analytical lens, it all seems rather dour and defeatist, though never to the extent of being a lodestone around the album’s neck. When that is mirrored sonically, it’s done so in sparing capacity, really just on Paintballs. Out of necessity, it’s a drearier, more meditative cut, perhaps better off being saved till a bit nearer to the end than it is, to maximise its feeling of burnout. When most of Elbows Out!… is in sharp musical contrast, it just makes sense. Here’s a driven-sounding, organically-produced alt-rock / punk album doused in Lenman-esque wit and humour; the effort to try is still there, rather than just crumbling under the pressure to give up. And that does a lot to endear Pet Needs, in their vocational desire to prove that quality and passion do still count, despite the knocks (and often severe ones) that they’ll take.

The band that springs to mind most in all of this is The Subways, perhaps not one-to-one in sound but certainly in portrayal. They’ve never been a cool band or one on the edge of relevance, but they’ve lasted this long by being earnest to a fault. There’s a bit of Frank Turner, too, in Marriott’s indisputably British everyman with music in his bloodstream. Put that all together (with the expected bits of Reuben, Hundred Reasons and the rest of that crew), and songs like Hey You Hey You (Are You Are You OK OK?) and Ducklings become irresistible in their melodies. For a bit more knees-up energy, Top Score and Vertical keep it frantic yet decidedly tight and bouncy. There’s even a couple of curveballs pulled off without a hitch—Pixels and Can We Get This Straight for a more sweeping Britrock palette, and Party With A Hard T as a dark-rock throbber that wouldn’t be out of place in Don Broco’s catalogue.

It’s a toss-up to whether that’s all superior to Pet Needs’ last great album Intermittent Fast Living in 2024, but the fact that’s a discussion to have at all is a very good sign. External forces will will it, but Pet Needs are far from down; even if the push forward is purely out of spite, it’s here anyway. After all, some of the best alt-rock of the 21st Century has bore that very spirit of perseverance against the odds. They aren’t the biggest names, but they’re some of the most valued, and it’s not hard to imagine Pet Needs joining that lot one day. Elbows Out!… has everything they need to get there in absolute spades.

For fans of: Reuben, Frank Turner, The Automatic

‘Elbows Out! This Is Capitalism’ by Pet Needs is released on 27th March on Xtra Mile Recordings.

Words by Luke Nuttall